On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we take a look back at some of the path breaking women debutants of 2020 in the world of arts. The arts have always held the power to affect change and these women, who have been confronting the norms of chaotic patriarchy all their lives, show promise for a brighter and more equal future. Get to know more about them below.
FILM
Anvita Dutt
A storyteller, who began her journey writing scripts, dialogues and lyrics, finally ventured towards direction last year with the Netflix film Bulbbul. A story of a woman challenging patriarchy, Anvita Dutt’s debut film Bulbbul was full of intrigue and told like a fairytale. When we last spoke to her, she told us how Bulbbul changed her life. 'It brought a new dream to me, and once the dream actualised, once I started working on the film as a director, I realised that this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life,’ she shared.
Read our full interview with the filmmaker here.
Arati Kadav
An IIT graduate, Arati Kadav was an excellent student, who ultimately moved to the States for work. She saw a gazillion movies there, and overtime she felt like learning and doing it herself. So she jumped right onto it. She bought a nice video camera and made lots of amateur videos, all written, directed, acted, edited, and music by Arati Kadav. The more she made those, the more she realised the beauty and vastness of this art form. A science student, Arati's debut film naturally had spaceships, robots and talked about afterlife and death. Titled Cargo, you can watch the film on Netflix.
Read our full interview with the filmmaker here.
MUSIC
L'nee Golay
L’nee Golay’s music is like an evolving quest to understand what it is to be different. The songs from her new extended play seem like they are written to someone imaginary, offering them all the confidences and affirmations of a world where there are no labels. Standing tall in support of the LGBTQ+ movement, Golay is hopeful for a world without prejudice and hate. Tune into her music for some soul-baring pop.
Read more about her here.
FASHION
Future Of
The motivation for Future Of came from two things. The first was the need to build a thoughtful and inclusive platform that showcased not only good products but also good ideas. The second was to create a brand that resonated with growing creative and entrepreneurial Indian consumers, who are looking for inspiration, value and above all access to collaborate and grow.
Read more about the label here.
Polite Society
Surmai Jain conceived Polite Society as a reflection of who she is. She grew up rejecting the diktats put across by those around her and hence the core of Polite Society aims to subvert what the so-called appropriate term stands for, fostering free play between the appropriate and the inappropriate. ‘We wanted to create conversations that may not essentially be polite, that’s where the name came in. It implies a group of well mannered people, but what I’m trying to say is that we ought to be wealthy in terms of our ideas and knowledge,’ she explains.
Read more about the label here.
ART
Biraaj Dodiya
Referring to personal memory, loss and coming of age, Biraaj Dodiya’s body of work takes the form of a lament; bringing together signifiers of youth and mortality, discomfort and relief, absence and distance through paintings and sculptures. The works in her debut exhibition explored stages of material proposition and cancellation. Like an excavation site, they were a result of processes of breakdown and repair, much like the urgent recalling of moments of crisis.
Read more about the artist here.
LITERATURE
Megha Majumdar
Megha, who has had a long lasting relationship with literature, currently working as an editor at Catapult, is an enthralling new literary voice. Her debut book, A Burning, is extraordinary and urgent. Not short of an epic novel, it revolves around three characters and a simple social media post that propels into motion a riveting tale, replete with complex themes of class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning towards extremism.
Read our interview with the author here.
Karuna Ezara Parikh
Set in a world of students but breathtaking in its expansiveness, Karuna Ezara Parikh’s debut book, The Heart Asks Pleasure First, is a spellbinding novel that speaks urgently to the frailties of our times. Karuna Ezara Parikh humanizes the big themes of friendship and family, migration and xenophobia, with the deftness of a poet and the magic of a born storyteller.
Read our interview with the author here.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Anu Kumar
Documentary photographer Anu Kumar was raised in Melbourne with the lingering expectation of excelling at academics, much like the other first generation kids around her. Little did she know that at the age of nineteen she would find her true calling — photography. ‘I always thought that I would become a doctor or something similar to what my parents are. It wasn’t enforced but there was definitely an expectation. There was that pressure felt by every kid to prove to their parents that their sacrifice of leaving the motherland wasn’t in vain,’ she asserts.
Read more about her here.